Driven from its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State is down but not out. Where once they confronted armies, the extremist Islamist group's adherents have now staged hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks. In some cases, the group has claimed responsibility for atrocities, including the bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed at least 253 people. Its involvement is not always proven, but even if the link is ideological rather than operational, Islamic State still poses a security threat in many countries.
'India appears to have stood its ground on strategic autonomy by resisting US pressure on Russia, China and Iran, but succumbed to the temptation to walk into a tighter embrace in defence cooperation, a high priority of the Trump administration,' notes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'It will be a ghastly mistake for the CPI-M to face the 2019 poll on its own.' 'At best, it can hope to split non-BJP votes in some pockets, but the humiliating rout will spell its doom,' warns M K Bhadrakumar.
Kashmir was indeed in need of a messiah that summer; 70 per cent of its population aged below 31 were up in arms against the Indian State. Every nook and corner of the land brought forth stories of youngsters with crushed bodies and an unfaltering spirit.
'If push comes to shove, Pakistan does have the capability to make it difficult for the US and NATO forces to make even a withdrawal of troops out of Afghanistan in orderly fashion,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'After a strategic pause though, Beijing will revive its policy of slowly creeping towards acquiring sovereignty over the South China Sea.'
'It is a tense border and there are numerous elements that keep these tensions alive.' 'India is willing to militarily respond if provoked.'
'His essential doctrine was only the local police can fight terror.' '"You can't fire at mobs throwing stones," he said, adding one has to think innovatively, even defensively, sometimes.' Shekhar Gupta remembers the uncoventional SuperCop.
Xi, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, called the progress China had made under his watch "truly remarkable
To a question, Headley further clarified that he had informed the NIA that 'this woman (Jahan) was an Indian and an LeT operative' but could not explain why this was not recorded in his statement.
'According national security and higher defence management empathetic political attention they warrant is critical. Will Prime Minister Modi pick up this gauntlet?' asks C Uday Bhaskar.
'The UPA was the gang that couldn't shoot straight. The NDA is the gang that can't stop shooting. They (the Modi government) are shooting at anybody, everybody, all directions, shooting themselves in the foot.'
'The debate is not whether the Indian defence apparatus is in a state of disrepair, but whether it is capable of securing the defence of the country if any envisaged threat becomes real.'
In spite of being wounded in battle, Lieutenant Colonel A B Tarapore fought for six days before meeting a hero's death on the battlefield in the 1965 war. A legend in the Indian Army, he is the highest ranking officer to be awarded the Param Vir Chakra.
A first-of-its kind 'battle field hospital' is being set up deep inside the Naxal hotbed of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh which will provide immediate first aid to injured Central Reserve Police Force and other security forces officials undertaking anti-Maoist operations.
The CRPF DG said that security forces are reaching out to young men, who have joined terror groups, through all possible ways to stop them from taking up arms.
India and China met and spoke a lot this year, but failed to produce any meaningful results.
The photo published by the People's Liberation Army Air Force showing a long-range strategic bomber flying within visible range of Yushan, Taiwan's highest mountain, has caused great concern in Taiwan amid debate about whether the mainland will reunify the island by force, state-run Global Times reported.
'The accusation that Pakistan risks losing sovereignty to China is emotive and has the potential to spread.' 'China will, however, remain intent on achieving its strategic ambitions of acquiring Gwadar port and securing a large chunk of Pakistan occupied Kashmir,' says former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
'It is an ambush, and no IEDs were used, which means it is more tactical, more technical and more intelligent.'
Two lessons from the closure of the Barak investigation: be careful with investigations, and buy from the US or Russia through transparent protocols. Premvir Das examines
Marking the culmination of the 67th Republic Day celebrations, the military on Friday held the beating retreat ceremony at Vijay Chowk in Delhi with patriotic fervour.
'The non-implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission, almost a year after it was implemented for civilians, is gradually beginning to hurt morale in the armed forces,' says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
'The intrusion in Chumar, during and beyond the Chinese president's visit, is unprecedented and has qualitatively changed the tone of the India-China relationship,' says Jayadeva Ranade, a member of the National Security Advisory Board.
The counter-insurgency operation on the Indo-Myanmar was under planning for the last three months. The June 4 ambush that killed 18 Indian soldiers only hastened the attack. Sheela Bhatt provides exclusive details of the planning for the operation.
On display was India's military might and cultural diversity.
A total of 820 ex-paramilitary soldiers and 26 civilians were put on trial and Dhaka metropolitan sessions court judge Md Akhtaruzzaman gave life imprisonment to 158 rebel soldiers and jail terms of three to 10 years to 251 others, while 271 were acquitted.
The allocation in the defence budget is inadequate to meet India's long-term threats, especially from China and Pakistan, says Gurmeet Kanwal.
'There was the indisputable fact that Savarkar knew Godse, Apte and Karkare well, he had corresponded with them closely, and funded their extremely provocative newspaper, and they looked up to him as their icon.'
Cyclone Hudhud is set to intensify further into a very severe cyclonic storm in the next 12 hours before it makes landfall on October 12.
'A close look at the time-lines tells you that exactly as the back-channel negotiations were in their most crucial stage, "somebody" was planning the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai,' says Shekhar Gupta questioning Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri's account of a peace deal with India.
Swaraj expressed satisfaction over the agenda of the inaugural dialogue while giving the details of the deliberations.
India needs to be alert on how the Doklam standoff plays into the factional infighting in China's Communist Party, says Ambassador Shyam Saran, the former foreign secretary.
'We should expect a cold-blooded, transactional relation that requires a lot of engagement and mutual trust to sustain,' says Constantino Xavier, Fellow, foreign policy, Brookings India.
'China's moves are of direct significance to India, which will closely monitor Chinese naval activity in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean not least because of Chinese maps depicting claims over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.'
A realistic assessment will tell us that not much has changed between India and Pakistan; the relationship remains as fraught as before with little prospect of reconciliation, notes Ajai Shukla.
Rains will continue to batter Tamil Nadu for the next seven days and the next 48 hours are "very crucial", the IMD has said.
Haryana and Punjab remained on high alert with officials warning that violent miscreants will be shot at sight.
In a setback for China, an international arbitration court ruled that it has jurisdiction to hear some territorial claims the Philippines has filed against it over disputed areas in the South China Sea, a ruling rejected by China as null and void.
'Pakistan may feel emboldened to give an upswing to the proxy war in J&K, having secured a better international consensus on its strategic importance.' 'The raising of Pakistani flags by separatists in J&K is an attempt to win psychological space and more of this can be expected as we go into the summer.' 'Pakistan should remain warned that pushing India on this issue will be dangerous.'
